This admonition is at the forefront of my mind tonight as I reflect on the day. I'm overwhelmed at my pride and selfishness and bitterness and lack of love. I really am a horrible person. And I don't even believe it. God is so good. If anything, that was the principal lesson God was trying to send to my brain as I read the final chapters of Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. I'm reeling from the comments he made. What follows are several statements inspired by his thoughts and a transparent introspection culminating in praise to an unconditionally loving, selfless and forgiving God.
At the end of Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller refers to an experience which his thinking was challenged by someone arguing that our terminology often underscores the presuppositional framework behind our comments. Specifically, this concerned how much relationships are viewed in an economic context. We value friends, we invest in others. Heck, I can remember when I said that I didn't want to be friends with someone because it wasn't worth the time I put in. And we Christians call that unconditional love. That sounded a lot like Jesus, didn't it? (insert sarcastic stab here)
My point is simply this: I am an unloving, angry idiot. I hate anyone who steps past my boundary of what is considered reasonable, acceptable, or right. That is sin. That is wrong. That is the antithesis of who Jesus Christ is, the antithesis of his purpose and the antithesis of love. He's really smashing me with this one but there's a comfort in it. It has brought into sharper focus the love and character (synonymous, I know) of Jesus, my Lord and Savior, the only one who is Good. He loves us...
He loves us...
He loves us...
I just can't even begin to describe it. Each time I type it, I'm at a loss. How great is our God! How great is Jesus, the lover of our souls! I only pray that someday I may truly love anyone. I asked God today to show me how to love. That was a mistake. Sort of. I suppose things are about to get really hard and I'll have to deal with someone I can't stand. But that's what Jesus did for me. That's what he still does to this day! I sinned against him in my anger, in my failure to acknowledge him as God, my failure to trust him. And that's just today. Talk about a whore! I feel like Gomer, and it is as though tonight, God, just as Hosea, took me back under his wing and reassured me, "I love you! I love you!" It's like the woman caught in adultery in John 8. I read that the other day and it really impressed upon me Christ's love, but now, here, this idea and concept explodes in truth.
How great the Father's love for us, for me, a miserable sinner. I'm hoping that my actions and attitudes toward others better portray God's dealings with me.
But in all of this I rest in the fact that it moves me to awe, to wonder. To worship. May his name be forever praised because he has shown his divine patience and love to one such as me.
Thank you, Lord Jesus. I love you, but only because you first loved me.
-Storyteller
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1 comment:
i really enjoyed this. i was right with you may friend!
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